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HS Open Curriculum
How to Get Good Speaker Points
Giving Cleaner Speeches
Good speeches are well organized, making it easy for the judge to flow and follow the debate strategically. Giving organized speeches throughout the debate means the judge should be able to look at their flow and be able to reconstruct the round.
Give a roadmap and stick to it – the judge will have several flows to separate the major arguments in the debate. Tell the judge in what order you’ll address each one and don’t jump around during your speech.
The roadmap should indicate in which order you will discuss each affirmative advantage, negative disadvantage, counterplan, kritik, and/or topicality violation.
Do not give the individual arguments such as uniqueness or “answering their claims about X.”
The ideal order should start with your offense (i.e., affirmative speeches should start with the advantages and negative speeches should end with them).
Make all of your arguments for an advantage or offcase position at once. Don’t answer some arguments on an advantage, talk about a disadvantage, and then go back to talking about the advantage.
Signposting – tell the judge when you are moving on to a new argument. Declare when you are moving from the overview to the line-by-line debate or from one disadvantage to the next.
On each flow, start by giving an overview (if you have one for that flow) and then address individual arguments. Don’t compare impacts in the middle of answering arguments.
Refer explicitly to arguments with author names and numbering.
When extending evidence or referring to it in cross-ex, always say the author name.
When responding to arguments, refer to them by the order in which they were made (Ex. “Responding to 2AC 2…”).
Saying “our evidence” or “their evidence” doesn’t tell the judge what specific card you’re referencing.
Rhetorical Tips
Slow down during transitions – make sure the judge has time to write and switch flows.
Clearly say “AND,” “NEXT,” or use numbers to indicate when you are making a new argument.
Read the tag and cite of a card slower than the text.
Don’t rush through analytic arguments. Making sure the judge actually hears and gets down what you’re saying is always better than tripping up the other team by going quickly.
Use inflection instead of reading in a monotone. Practice giving your 1AC or 1NC while slowing down and speaking up at parts you want to emphasize.
Remember to attack arguments, not the opponents. Telling the judge which of your arguments was dropped and why it matters is much better than saying your opponents totally mishandled the flow.
Explaining why a piece of evidence is stronger in your own words is always better than telling the judge to look at the card themselves to see how much better it is.
Judges will notice whether you’re flowing and referencing your flow in later speeches. If a judge doesn’t see you flowing and notices dropped arguments, it will not reflect well.